National Guard members are on the move in Washington DC, trying to make their patrols less predicable in the wake of the ambush that left one soldier dead and another critically wounded.<\/p>\n
Small groups of Guard members briskly maneuvered through the city\u2019s downtown on foot on Friday \u2014 including just across the street from where suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal allegedly brutally gunned down <\/a>Sarah Beckstrom, 20 and Andrew Wolfe<\/a>, 24.<\/p>\n Before Wednesday\u2019s shocking attack, Guard members were stationed, often in pairs, at fixed locations including DC\u2019s Metro, main thoroughfares and the National Mall.<\/p>\n The National Guard has switched to roving patrols in Washington DC after this week\u2019s shocking fatal ambush. Geoffrey Earle\/NY Post<\/p>\n A recent attack left one soldier dead and another critically wounded. Anthony Rowland\/CBS News<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got to set everything to kind of a higher standard, versus kind of relaxed, you know how it used to be,\u201d one Guardsman, who asked for anonymity, told The Post. <\/p>\n \u201cYou had some individuals coming up heckling you [before] . . . And now it\u2019s just kind of always be on alert.\u201d<\/p>\n National Guard patrols are also now being joined with by members of DC\u2019s Metropolitan Police Department, adding firepower and knowledge of the local terrain to the mix.<\/p>\n The Washington Post reported that DC police will accompany Guard troops at least temporarily, in a shift that acknowledges the risks of the status quo. <\/p>\n \u201cOfficers will conduct high-visibility patrols with the national guard and provide assistance as needed,\u201d\u00a0according to an email to DC leadership obtained by the Washington Post. <\/p>\n Suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal allegedly gunned down Sarah Beckstrom, 20 and Andrew Wolfe, 24. FBI<\/p>\n A spokesman for Joint Task Force \u2013 District of Columbia would not confirm the report.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are going to maintain our relationship with MPD as they are one of our major law enforcement partners,\u201d the spokesman said. \u201cDue to operational security concerns we\u2019re not going to discuss any potential changes to our security posture.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a sound thing to do, it just reinforces each other. It just makes it more of a deterrent that they would come after a National Guard officer,\u201d former Assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker told The Post of changes in how Guard members are deployed.<\/p>\n The new patrols mean the National Guard in Washington DC are now \u201calways \u2026on alert.\u201d Geoffrey Earle\/NY Post<\/p>\n He pointed to similar ambushes of police officers on US streets.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t have your gun drawn and pivoting like you\u2019re in a gun fight 24\/7.\u00a0 You get eyes in the back of your head, but it\u2019s nearly impossible to stop this from happening if you have someone that\u2019s motivated and you\u2019re on a crowded street,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n President Trump ordered the deployment of an additional 500 National Guard members to DC after the shooting. Two thousand Guard troops were already serving in DC under Trump\u2019s \u201cSafe and Beautiful Task Force.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"National Guard members are on the move in Washington DC, trying to make their patrols less predicable in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[303,30062,5435,9,11,10,87,58,8093],"class_list":{"0":"post-55627","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-dc-national-guard-shooting-2025","10":"tag-national-guard","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-us-news","16":"tag-washington-dc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}